WiseTracker is a tracker — the classic FastTracker 2 / Renoise way
of making music, where you type notes and effects into a grid and edit fast from the keyboard.
Drop in a sound, build a kit, generate a beat, or just use it as a sampler. It runs
two ways: as WiseTrax, a VST3 plugin loaded inside your DAW,
or as the WiseTracker standalone app — no DAW required. Both ship from one
codebase, in one download — and a song is one .wise file, so you can start in
one and pick it up in the other.
Built by one person & Claude. In active development.
Plugin or standalone — same tracker.
Load WiseTrax as a VST3 instrument and it plays in time with your DAW,
takes MIDI from your keyboard, and saves inside your project. Or open the
WiseTracker app on its own — it has its own transport and tempo, picks its
own audio device, and saves songs as .wise files. Pick whichever fits what
you're doing; the layout, the engine and your muscle memory carry across.
- WiseTrax — VST3 instrument, synced to host tempo and transport, multi-instance
- WiseTracker — standalone Windows app, no DAW needed, own audio device
- A transport bar — Play/Stop, live position + clock, song BPM, Loop, plus metronome and tap tempo
- One file format — save a song as a
.wisefile in either one and open it in the other, or hand it to someone running the other
A grid you play with the keyboard.
Type notes straight into the grid, hex-edit values in place, and move around without touching the mouse. Up to 64 tracks and 256 instruments per song, with 128-voice polyphony.
- Per-track mute, solo, volume, pan, colour and rename
- 200 levels of undo/redo with named steps — it tells you what it just undid
- Full FastTracker-2-style effects, plus extended and WiseTracker-native commands
- A horizontal scrollbar for the grid, so wide songs stay easy to move through
Map a kit across the keyboard.
Drop several samples into one instrument and lay them out across the keys on the KEYZONES keymap — one sound per key for a drum kit, or a stack of layers for a full-range instrument.
- Visual keymap — drag a zone to re-map it, zoom in for fine work
- Zones light up live as notes come in from MIDI or the grid
- Record a kit from a controller, one key at a time
Turn hits-over-steps into a beat.
Set how many hits land across how many steps and the RHYTHM panel spreads them evenly as a Euclidean pattern — the maths behind a lot of the world's grooves. Add accents, rotate it, walk it through a scale for an in-key melody, then STAMP it straight into the grid.
- Euclidean beats with hits, steps, rotation and accents
- Scale-walk melodies — turn a rhythm into notes in key
- A browser of world rhythms and ready-made grooves — one click sets it up
Drop in sounds, slice, and go.
Drag in WAV, AIFF, FLAC or OGG files — one at a time, in a batch, or a whole folder at once, each file becoming its own auto-named instrument. Edit the waveform and slice on transients to chop a loop into playable hits.
- Automatic transient slicing with a sensitivity control, plus a loop-tempo estimate
- Waveform tools — normalize, fade, reverse, crop, silence, remove DC, snap loop
- One file, a batch, or a whole folder — each becomes its own instrument
Set the root, then tune to taste.
Set a sample's root note and tune it with Pitch and Fine — semitones and cents on top of the root — including fixed one-shots and drums. The inspector shows what you're working with at a glance, and how many patterns already use it.
- Pitch and Fine, layered on top of the root note and the played key
- Root note, tempo, length, sample rate, bit depth, channels and loop
- See how many patterns use a sample, and preview it with play / loop
Open your old .xm and .mod files.
Drop in a FastTracker 2 .xm or an Amiga ProTracker .mod module and
an import box shows you what's inside before it loads — tempo, channels, patterns and instruments
— with an honest note of anything it had to approximate. Choose how it should play, hit Import,
and it opens as a fully editable song: patterns, instruments and samples.
- Authentic — plays the module's effects (volume slides, arpeggio, vibrato, pattern breaks) the original FastTracker / ProTracker way
- Wise — the same song with those effects smoothed out; switch any time
- Amiga
.mod(4/6/8-channel) and.xiinstruments load too — more formats on the way
Save it, render it, share an instrument.
Save and open your songs as .wise files, with Open Recent and a New command to
start fresh. Render the whole song to audio — WAV, FLAC or OGG. Export an instrument on its
own as .wiseinst to reuse or pass around.
Set up the way you like it.
Four dark themes, whole-UI zoom from 50% to 200% so it stays crisp on a 4K display, and three ways to watch the pattern play. A level and CPU meter sit up top, and the in-app Help is a searchable home page if you get stuck.
- Cinema — smooth ghost scrolling
- Classic — static grid with a playhead bar
- Locked — keep editing freely while it plays
Grab the latest build
Free while it's in public beta. One download — the WiseTrax plugin and the WiseTracker app, both inside. Windows. See the release notes for what's new.
Download v0.2.2 · ~10.7 MBWhat's in the zip
WiseTrax.vst3— the plugin, for any VST3 hostWiseTracker.exe— the standalone app, runs on its ownREADME.txtandCHANGELOG.txt
What you need
- Windows
- For the plugin: a VST3 host (any modern DAW). Built and tested in Reason 13, and run by beta testers across all sorts of DAWs.
- For the standalone: nothing else — just run the
.exe.
How to install
- Unzip the download.
- Plugin: copy
WiseTrax.vst3intoC:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\, then rescan plugins in your DAW and add WiseTrax as an instrument. - Standalone: run
WiseTracker.exe, choose your audio device, drop in a few samples, and start playing.
Questions
Do I need a DAW?
No. You can run the WiseTracker standalone app on its own — it has its own transport, tempo and audio device. Or load WiseTrax as a VST3 plugin if you'd rather work inside your DAW. Both are in the same download.
What's the difference between WiseTrax and WiseTracker?
Same tracker, two ways to run it. WiseTrax is the VST3 plugin — it loads in your DAW and syncs to its tempo and transport. WiseTracker is the standalone desktop app — no DAW needed. They share the engine, the layout and the file format.
Can I move a project between the plugin and the standalone?
Yes. A whole song — patterns, samples, kit and settings — saves to a single .wise file, and both WiseTrax and WiseTracker read and write it. So you can start in the standalone and finish in your DAW, or the other way round, and you can hand a .wise (or a single .wiseinst instrument) to anyone running either one. The .wise file stands on its own, separate from your DAW project.
Is it free?
Yes — free while it's in public beta. At full release it'll move to the PolyForm Shield License (so still free).
Which DAWs does the plugin work in?
Any host that loads VST3 plugins. It's built and tested mainly in Reason 13, and beta testers run it across all sorts of DAWs. If your DAW loads VST3s, it should load WiseTrax. Please report any bugs.
Is there a Mac version?
Not yet — Windows only for now. A Mac build may come later, but there's no date.
How do I install it?
Unzip the download. For the plugin, copy WiseTrax.vst3 into C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\ and rescan plugins in your DAW. For the standalone, just run WiseTracker.exe. Full steps are in the download section above.
It's a beta — should I expect bugs?
Yes. It's early, some things are still missing, and things can change between builds. If something looks or sounds off, the best place to say so is the Discord.
Can I download an older version?
You almost always want the latest build — grab it from the download section above; older ones have more bugs and fewer features. But if a project needs a specific build, here they are:
Release notes
What changed in each public build — newest first. Click one to expand.
v0.2.2 Amiga .mod import + more faithful module playback 2026-06-20
- Import Amiga ProTracker
.modfiles — drag one in (or use the Import module menu), the same import box as.xm, loaded as a full editable song with faithful Amiga pitch and the Authentic/Wise playback choice. - Slide-to-note (tone portamento) lands on the right note even when the row doesn't re-state the instrument — the normal way
.modfiles write a pitch slide. - Note-delay, retrigger and tremor now land and roll at the right moment within the row, and effect memory (slides, fine pitch/volume, retrigger) is honoured.
- Notes revive, re-pan and fade out correctly when an instrument is re-stated or a note is released, and fadeouts play at the right speed.
- All of this is Authentic-style playback; Wise style and your own songs are unaffected.
v0.2.1 Module import box + faithful XM playback 2026-06-18
- New module import box — see an
.xm's tempo, channels, patterns and instruments before it loads, choose Authentic or Wise playback, and get an honest report of anything that had to be approximated. - Switch a loaded module between Authentic and Wise playback any time, from the Menu or Settings.
- More faithful XM playback — volume slides, arpeggio, tremor, speed changes, pattern breaks, note-cut and key-off now play the original way, and set-volume levels are correct.
- A built-in output safety ceiling keeps loud songs and imports from blasting or distorting (exports included); imported modules also load at a safer level.
- In a DAW the host's Play/Stop is always in charge; the standalone got its own app icon.
v0.2.0 First public beta — now a standalone app too 2026-06-15
- Now a standalone app (WiseTracker) alongside the VST (WiseTrax) — same tracker, no DAW required.
- A transport bar — Play/Stop, live position + clock, song BPM, Loop, metronome and tap tempo.
- Multisample instruments on a visual KEYZONES keymap.
- A rhythm generator — Euclidean beats, scale-walk melodies, a grooves library, and STAMP to the grid.
- Tune any sample (Pitch + Fine); save/open
.wisesongs, render to WAV/FLAC/OGG, import.xm, Open Recent. - Rewritten in-app Help, a master + CPU meter, and a grid scrollbar.
v0.1.x Closed beta — the foundations May–Jun 2026
- The pre-public builds (0.1.0–0.1.6), VST3 only: the tracker grid and song sequencer, the sampler with transient slicing and tempo detection,
.xm/.xiimport, four dark themes and 200-level undo. - These were closed beta and aren't downloadable here — v0.2.0 was the first public release.
Come help shape it.
WiseTracker is in public beta and made by one person, so your ears matter — a lot. If something breaks, feels off, or you wish it did a thing it doesn't yet, come say so on the Discord. Bug reports, "how do I…" questions and feature ideas are all equally welcome. No forms, no account walls — just drop in and say hi.
Join the Discord